Gene Healy Says We Need Political Labels

Launched in 2010 to "move America from the old politics of point-scoring toward a new politics of problem-solving," No Labels is back, with a "three-year campaign to create a national strategic agenda" and a new book, No Labels: A Shared Vision for a Stronger America. "The grownups show up," gushes one Amazon reviewer. But if these are the "grownups," why do they come wearing happy-face buttons and spouting get-along bromides that might have been drawn from a middle-school "No Putdowns" campaign? Does Congress really need its own anti-bullying movement? It's easy to make fun of No Labels, writes Gene Healy, but it's also important, because their empty pieties offer no real alternative to business as usual.

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